The Supportive Foundation of Free Education – an invisible influential factor in school education, teacher education and research between 1973–1991

Authors

• Sakari Suutarinen Jyväskylän kaupunki

Abstract

The article deals with the influence of the Supportive Foundation of Free Education (in existence from 1973 to 1991) over school education, teacher education and educational research, and it tends to clarify if the Foundation had any real prerequisites to influence those sectors. If it did, the aim is to study, in addition, what were the concrete issues to which it directed its action. The contents of the records of the Foundation and interviews form the sources that the article is based upon. The results show that the prerequisites of the Foundation were sufficient, as regards its influence; for example, it had clearly defined concrete aims, an efficient organization, good contacts and sufficient finances. The concrete aims of influencing, mentioned in the article, reinforce the image given by the earlier general-level research, as regards the extent and efficiency of its action. As for school education, its aims were to abolish school democracy and to define how to teach civics at school, whereas in teacher education, its concrete actions were the political classification of the staff and the attempt to influence its selection and the contents of teaching.